[FreeNX-kNX] Can I use real X display in FreeNX?

[Gian Filippo Pinzari]

Thorsten Sandfuchs wrote:
> I really would appreciate more functionality contributed from "our" side,
> although there could be some problems with the real _core_ design issues,
> which would prehaps drive the development too much apart.

I think the real reason why nobody is contributing is rather that X is
difficult, as Fabian has pointed out. Nevertheless I agree that the
software has grown a lot in 5 years and surely there are core design
choice that, more than being choices, were adaptations to implement new
stuff. If you consider that the 1.1.0 client, released in 2002, is still
compatible with the latest server, you should see what I mean. Anyway
I suggest that, before thinking at how to do things differently, or
better, people consider helping with the many functionalities that are
still missing. This, I think, would be much appreciated by the vast
majority of the NX users.

Learning from what is bad, and coming to a better implementation, is
easy when you have the "bad" implementation serving as a reference.
There will be a time when we'll look at what is bad, surely in concert
with the community. Forking might be not a good idea, though. Given
the vast experience NoMachine has in the NX design, and knowing the
details of each of the bits that are part of NX, including the bits
that can appear wrong but were implemented that way to come to a
solution in reasonable time, I'm sure we can come together to a better
and more efficient implementation, especially if we can drop compati-
bility. Anyway, at a time when NX has still to show all its potential,
I think it's better to work on consolidating, instead of rewriting.
Too many projects get killed because their developers care the
technical details more than their users' needs.

> And there obviously are some minor difference with other OSS developed tools,
> as e.g. no public source repository and so on (with which we cope and
> understand, but some have to adjust :))

I'm sure that the FreeNX developers are not in the number of those
who think that there is only "one right way" to do things and that
all those who don't agree are either ignorant or morons... Linus
Torvald said recently that he would have rather reverted to Tar files
to keep developing Linux, instead of using CVS or any of the other
existing tools. We have a highly decentralized development model,
with different groups working at different branches of the sources.
The CVS or SVN model wouldn't work for us, simply because these tools
don't match our internal development processes, which are the somehow
complex business processes of a company producing software products,
not patch files. I'm in the old school of people who think that the
tools must solve problems, not tell you the way you must work. This
does not mean we should not try to simplify things as much as we
can for the casual contributors. There is a fairly documented process
for people that want to contribute changes and I'm thinking at a
way to change as little as we can in our development model and make
it compatible with the CVS/SVN way of contributing changes. In the
meanwhile show us the changes and we'll do all the work required to
make new versions and integrate them into the software.

/Gian Filippo.